US PRESIDENT Barack Obama has warned that Israel faced mounting international isolation and deepening security problems unless the stricken peace process with the Palestinians was brought back to life.
He used a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a lobby group, to justify his call last week for 1967 borders to be the basis of negotiations – a call that infuriated Israel, which has backed the establishment of settlements with thousands of Israeli citizens in the West Bank.
His audience at what the committee said was its biggest gathering yet, in one of the biggest conference halls in the country, gave him a mostly polite response, with a smattering of boos when he first mentioned the 1967 borders.
“The march to isolate Israel internationally – and the impulse of the Palestinians to abandon negotiations – will continue to gain momentum in the absence of a credible peace process and alternative,” Mr Obama told the gathering.
He added that the Palestinian drive to achieve recognition as a state at the UN – set to reach a climax in September – was fuelled by growing “impatience with the peace process or the absence of one, not just in the Arab world but in Latin America, in Europe and in Asia”.
However, in an apparent sign of his own low expectations of a diplomatic breakthrough, Mr Obama described a recent agreement on a unity government between Fatah, the party of Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Authority president, and Hamas, the Islamist militant group, as “an enormous obstacle to peace”. Referring to Israel, he said: “No country can be expected to negotiate with a terrorist organisation sworn to its destruction.”
Giving his account of a meeting on Friday with Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister, after which Mr Netanyahu described the 1967 lines as militarily indefensible, Mr Obama said he had told the Israeli leader that the status quo was not tenable.
He said the growth of the number of Palestinians living west of the Jordan river would make it “harder and harder – without a peace deal – to maintain Israel as both a Jewish state and a democratic state”.
He argued that technology – a reference to the use of missiles by groups such as Hizbullah and Hamas – would also “make it harder for Israel to defend itself in the absence of a genuine peace” and that, in the wake of the Arab uprisings, “a just and lasting peace can no longer be forged with one or two Arab leaders”.
Mr Obama added: “Going forward, millions of Arab citizens have to see that peace is possible for that peace to be sustained.”
He altered his tone when discussing the 1967 borders, while standing by his original comments. He said his reference last week to “mutual agreed swaps” from the 1967 lines meant that the parties would by definition “negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed on June 4th, 1967” and “account for the changes that have taken place over the last 44 years, including the new demographic realities on the ground and the needs of both sides”.
That language echoed – but did not go as far as – former president George W Bush, who in 2004 promised Israel that any borders agreed as part of a peace deal should reflect “new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centres”. – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2011)